


set the fire and let it burn

by elsaclack



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Angst, F/M, Firebending & Firebenders, Fluff (at the end), Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 08:24:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18774889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsaclack/pseuds/elsaclack
Summary: She hadn’t cried.He isn’t entirely sure what to do with that information - can’t fathom a situation in which he’d need to know that. But he has it, carved deep into his memories: Amy Santiago did not cry.She’d screamed.She’d yelped.She’d rasped and trembled and gripped his shirt like a lifeline.But Amy Santiago did not cry.





	set the fire and let it burn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [startofamoment](https://archiveofourown.org/users/startofamoment/gifts).
  * Inspired by [that's rough, buddy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17643854) by [startofamoment](https://archiveofourown.org/users/startofamoment/pseuds/startofamoment). 



> HI SO THIS IS 110% BASED OFF OF @startofamoment‘s ATLA AU IN WHICH JAKE IS A FIREBENDER!!!! WHICH IS AMAZING AND AWESOME AND EVEN THOUGH IT’S NOT COMPLETELY NECESSARY TO HAVE READ THAT PRIOR TO READING THIS YOU GUYS HAVE TO READ IT. RIGHT NOW IMMEDIATELY I’LL WAIT
> 
> okay ANYWAYS this is based on one little snippet from that fic bc i’m a trash goblin and i couldn’t stop thinking about it and erica only encouraged me (read: politely listened while i screamed about it in her dms and then VERY KINDLY allowed me to write and now publish this) so here it is: the firebending angst au spin-off from hell
> 
> (titled in my google docs as “i gotta get a new Brand but shit boi!!!!! this au is so good!!!!!!!”)

Beneath a flickering fluorescent light, in the only plastic chair not cracked from years of wear-and-tear, Jake Peralta sits alone in an emergency room waiting area. Between his fingers he compulsively spins a golden ring, fingertips occasionally catching on the green gemstone set along the band; he stares down at it with eyes that do not see, do not process, do not blink.

He’s been waiting here for the better part of an hour now - sitting here, mostly. Except for the thirty seconds during which he’d been certain his inner organs would finally manage to crawl right out of his throat, which also happened to be the first thirty seconds he spent here in this room, manically pacing, borderline running in circles. He’d visited the bathroom after that, because through the anguish clouding every other sense, he’d somehow registered that he needed to wash his hands.

(It isn’t until he notices the water rushing over his hands into the basin below runs red that he fully realizes why.

And in his reflection in the mirror behind that sink, he sees that same red liquid dotted on his cheek. He splashes water into his own eye in his haste to wipe that away.

It isn’t his blood.)

He’s been waiting here alone for the better part of an hour, except for when one of the healers approached him, her expression unreadable, the ring currently twisting around his fingers clutched in her hand intended for his safekeeping.

(It was apparently the only item of clothing salvageable - not that she told him that.

She didn’t need to.

He was there.)

He’s been waiting here alone for the better part of an hour now, and he finds himself wondering how many waited here before him - how many felt anguish gnawing at their throats, how many felt their bones crack beneath the weight of their uncertainty, how many plummeted into the inky black void of grief and heartache and loss.

How many struggled for air through lungs compressed by guilt and shame and the fear that they maybe, possibly played a role in what happened.

He closes his eyes and grits his teeth, focusing on the sharp bite of a band too small fitting snug around the first knuckle of his thumb, banishing the haunting echoes of an hour ago to the furthest corners of his mind.

She hadn’t cried.

He isn’t entirely sure what to do with that information - can’t fathom a situation in which he’d need to know that. But he has it, carved deep into his memories: Amy Santiago did not cry.

She’d screamed.

She’d yelped.

She’d rasped and trembled and gripped his shirt like a lifeline.

But Amy Santiago did not cry.

 _He_ cried. He hadn’t even realized it at the time (or afterwards, in all honesty), not with his hands so slick with blood he could barely keep a grip on her. He’d ripped holes in the knees of his jeans from skidding to a stop at her side and he’d pulled her up into his chest, out of the blood quickly pooling beneath her, into an unsteady and panic-stricken embrace.

She didn’t cry when she got shot - nor did she cry when he burned her to stop the catastrophic bleeding.

And really, it felt an awful lot like what he imagines having his very soul ripped out of his body would feel like, to press the sharp heat of his palm against her wound despite her hoarse cries of pain echoing off the towering alley walls surrounding them.

She didn’t cry, but she  _did_ pass out from the insurmountable agony of it all; the healers found them there on the ground, his inflicting hand shaking as he stroked her face, desperately begging her to open her eyes again.

And then they left him here, alone in the waiting room. They left him standing on a grimy tiled floor with his hands stained red, his face carved by glittering tear tracks, his heart ripped open in his chest.

She was still unconscious.

Her grandmother’s ring is far too small to fit on his thumb, or really any of his fingers, but he twists it around his fingers anyway, mimicking the movements he’s seen her do countless times before when lost in thought. It does nothing to drown the guilt out.

Years. He’s spent  _years_ learning how to control the fire raging within him. Years of intense focus, of tutelage, of unlearning deeply-ingrained self-hatred and suppression - and in the end, he still hurt the one he loves most. He’s certain it will be a lifetime before the look of sheer agony that had twisted Amy’s face the moment his palm pressed against her wound will even begin to fade from his memory, and even then he’s quite certain the sound she’d made - the guttural, heart-wrenching sound that  _he_ ripped from her throat - will  _never_ leave him.

The ring falls from his fingertips and clatters against the tiled floor between his feet; it’s only then that he registers how heavily he’s breathing, how blurry his vision has become.

 _Focus, Jacob_ , a voice that sounds suspiciously like Holt’s says, as clearly as though the man himself is seated right beside him.  _Benders have emotions, but emotions cannot have the benders. Focus_.

He grips both arm rests on his seat and hinges his entire existence on them, eyes falling closed as he forces himself to inhale deeply through his nose. His lungs are rioting between his ribs and the edges of his teeth pinch the edges of his tongue, and he’s real. He’s real and present and his emotions are a hurricane in a cardboard box inside his chest.

He opens his eyes and the world is technicolor once again; the green gemstone on Amy’s grandmother’s ring winks beneath the flickering fluorescent light twelve inches from his left foot.

It’s as his fingers close over the ring that the waiting room doors slide open and a familiar healer steps into the room.

“Is she okay?”

The question springs up from somewhere deep inside him, spilling from his lips without a conscious thought. He blinks and he’s on his feet, clutching Amy’s ring like a talisman, and the healer’s face is kind and gentle where not blurred by unshed tears.

(So maybe he’s still working on the whole focusing thing.)

“She’s okay.” the healer says, and all of his senses fade for just a moment. He is the physical embodiment of relief, teetering on the precipice, seconds from floating away into the heavens at the weight of the world vanishing from his shoulders. “She’s resting now,” the healer says as he slowly comes back to himself, “but she would like to see you.”

“I-I didn’t,” he rasps, and then stops, words lost to the sharp emotions jutting up like icebergs in his throat. “I didn’t - hurt her?”

A look of understanding flashes in the healer’s eyes. “You must be the firebender,” she says slowly.

And for just an instant every last nanoparticle of self-hatred in the universe crashes down upon him like a tsunami rising from the deep -

“Cauterizing the wound was the best thing you could have done for her,” the healer says, voice gentle, and the unshed tears pooling in his eyes finally crest and drip down his face. “In fact, without that, I’m not certain we would have gotten to her in time. You didn’t hurt her.” Her hands close over his, her grip steady and warm. “You saved her life.”

He hadn’t felt himself crying in the alley, but he definitely feels every last poorly-restrained sob shuddering through his chest like aftershocks of an earthquake now. “Saved - saved her life?” he repeats hoarsely as the healer pats and releases his hands.

“Yes, sir,” she says with that same kind smile, “and I know she would very much like to thank you for that.”

He nods, swiping the back of his hand across his face, and shuffles blindly after the healer as she gestures toward the emergency room.

Amy’s sitting up in her bed when he gets to her, and though he recognizes all the signs of exhaustion in her face, her eyes still light up when she sees him.

And if he was crying before, he’s all-out  _sobbing_ now.

“I’m  _so sorry_ ,” he says in a mumbled rush, practically tripping over his own feet to get to her and her outstretched arms. She draws him into a tight embrace without a word, the muscles of her arms straining against him from exertion, and when she falls backwards against her mattress she traps his arms wrapped around her waist beneath her. He buries his face in her pillow, well aware of the fact that it’s soaking up his tears, and Amy’s hands are clumsy where she strokes his hair and shoulders.

She’s looking up at him when he pulls away minutes later, and in her eyes he sees blazing intensity, and her fingers wind around the collar of his shirt moments before she pulls him into a hard and unforgiving kiss.

“You don’t apologize to me,” she says, voice quiet and hoarse and so, so fierce, when he pulls away a moment later. “You saved me.  _Never_ apologize.”

He clenches his jaw and closes his eyes as the truth of her statement washes over him. “I know,” he whispers thickly, “but I had to hurt you to do it -”

“I don’t care, Jake,” she interrupts sharply. “I’m alive because of you. That’s all that matters.” Her eyes are still blazing when he manages to open his again. “You’re a good man. You used your firebending abilities to save my life. I love you more than anything in the universe, and -” she reaches up to frame his face in her hands “- I am so proud of you.  _Thank you_ , Jake. I love you,  _every part_  of you,  _so_ much.”

He lifts his hands to cover both of hers and turns his face so that his lips slide against her palm; he presses three kisses there, eyes never once leaving her face. “I love you, too,” he whispers into her skin, “more than you’ll ever know.”

He can tell there’s a part of her that would very much like to argue, a lighthearted and playful part he only sees when they’re goofing around or flirting, but the dark circles beneath her eyes seem to be carved deep into her skull and her thumb strokes weakly against his cheek; she merely smiles, soft and serene, and allows him to gently buffet her to one side of the bed so that he has just enough room to shimmy in beside her. And he falls asleep quickly to the sounds of Amy’s deep, even breathing, her grandmother’s ring snug against the second knuckle of his index finger, his face all but buried in her soft hair.

It’s the best sleep he’s had in years.


End file.
